1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fiber optic connector, more particularly, to a rotatable L-shaped fiber optic connector.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional fiber optic connector is shown in FIG. 5, which includes a body (53) and a head (52) integrally formed together. The head (52) is substantially shaped to be a hollow rectangular box to match with a corresponding fiber optic socket (not shown). A plug terminal (51), integrally formed with the body (53), is provided in the head (52). The shape of the body (53) is substantially a cylindrical tube having two opposed flat faces (531) with a locking slot (532) defined therethrough to hold a clamp piece (533). The clamp piece (533) is substantially rectangular and has a wire slot (534) defined in the center portion thereof for clamping and securing a fiber optic wire (55).
With reference to FIG. 6, the fiber optic connector sequentially defines, starting from its front terminal, a narrow hollow segment (535), a medium hollow segment (536) and a wide hollow segment (537) to hold an inserted fiber optic wire (55). The outer covering (553) of the front portion of the fiber optic wire (55) is peeled off thereby exposing the filament (551) and inner covering (552) as shown in FIG. 5. The lengths of the exposed filament (551) and inner covering (552) are approximately equal to those of the wide and medium hollow segment (535, 536), respectively, thereby securely positioning the fiber optic wire (55) inside the fiber optic connector.
Due to the transmission characteristic of a fiber optic wire, the described conventional fiber optic connector always has a straight shaped body instead of the L-shaped body commonly provided for an audio connector or a D.C. power plug. It is hard to produce an L-shaped fiber optic connector because a fiber optic wire cannot make a turn with a relatively large angle therein and maintain the light transmission characteristics. However, the straight-shaped fiber optic connector suffers a disadvantage in that it always protrudes significantly outward from its socket and easy to be bumped away. Especially when the fiber optic connector is plugged into a CD device, the excessive protrusion of the fiber optic connector may cause inappropriate positioning of the CD device. Therefore, there is a need for the above optic fiber connector to be improved.